GOOD MORNING and welcome to Morning Tech, your backdoor into the networks of EU tech politics and policy.

— WHAT’S HAPPENING

CRYPTO WARNING: There’s been another warning against governments having special access to the keys for people’s encrypted communications. This one comes from the highest technical authorities, including pioneers of modern cryptography such as Whitfield Diffie and Ronald Rivest, as well as other big names such as Bruce Schneier and Susan Landau. The experts issued a report analyzing U.K. and U.S. government proposals. The report concludes that the idea of special access would force the security industry to reverse some of its recent advances: “The complexity of today’s Internet environment, with millions of apps and globally connected services, means that new law enforcement requirements are likely to introduce unanticipated, hard to detect security flaws. Beyond these and other technical vulnerabilities, the prospect of globally deployed exceptional access systems raises difficult problems about how such an environment would be governed and how to ensure that such systems would respect human rights and the rule of law.” Here’s the report: http://bit.ly/1fkruN5 And here’s a context-providing blogpost by Ross Anderson, one of the authors: http://bit.ly/1NLhQOb

RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN IN THE U.S.? The U.S. Consumer Watchdog group has complained about Google to the Federal Trade Commission, arguing that the company is wrong to not extend the EU “right to be forgotten” to that country. The organization claims the firm is engaging in “deceptive behavior” by claiming to champion privacy but not offering the “key privacy tool” to its users in the U.S. In the EU, the right requires Google and other search engines to de-link people’s personal information upon request, with some exceptions. It remains to be seen whether Consumer Watchdog will get anywhere as, while both U.S. and EU law back the rights to privacy and free speech, U.S. law tends to give more weight to the latter and EU law favors the former. An IDG report: http://bit.ly/1G56rTQ

MEANWHILE FACEBOOK has rather strangely linked the “right to be forgotten” debate (which doesn’t really affect it) with its own privacy woes in various EU countries. Regulators in the Netherlands and Belgium are probing or suing Facebook over alleged privacy violations, but the company argues that current EU data protection legislation means it is only subject to the jurisdiction of Irish authorities, as that’s where its European base is. The Guardian reported Facebook’s global deputy chief privacy officer as saying regulators were using a CJEU ruling that last year established the right to be forgotten as precedent for getting their claws into Facebook on a country-by-country basis. “A number of authorities in Europe are using that judgment to challenge the status quo that’s existed for many years. We think they’re wrong,” Stephen Deadman said. http://bit.ly/1HdzYPc

MICRO BITS: The BBC has shown off its design for a tiny computer that will be given to a million kids in the U.K. later this year. The Micro Bit is aimed at teaching children how to code, allowing them to program the device’s LED lights and various sensors. It can also be connected to more powerful cheap computers such as the Raspberry Pi. This is the first time the broadcaster has distributed computers since the BBC Micro in the 1980s, which cost hundreds of pounds (the Micro Bit will be free.) In fact, I remember learning some basic programming skills on a BBC Micro that found its way down to South Africa, where I grew up. http://bbc.in/1KOD0vD

JOLLA SPLITS: The Finnish phone company Jolla, which was formed by Nokia refugees, has split in two. One of the newly separated businesses will focus on Jolla’s Android-compatible Sailfish operating system, over which the company has been striking customization deals in the BRICS markets. The other company will focus on Jolla’s hardware, which is probably a less profitable endeavor. Chairman Antti Saarnio told TechCrunch that Jolla remained committed to come up with new hardware (so far it has only released one phone and crowdfunded one as yet unreleased tablet) but did not actually have firm plans to do so yet. http://tcrn.ch/1JLG790

BLIEP SOLD: The Dutch mobile virtual network operator (MVNO — a carrier that’s really a brand on top of someone else’s network) Bliep has sold up. Belgium’s Artilium, which provides infrastructure services to MVNOs, will pay €190,000 for the outfit. According to TelecomPaper, Artilium wants Bliep’s brand and its 21,000 customers, as well as its customer interaction software. http://bit.ly/1glOImj

POSSIBLE PATRIOT HACK: A German public-sector trade magazine called Behörden Spiegel has reported that hackers may have accessed Bundeswehr systems stationed in Turkey, next to the Syrian border. The publication said the Patriot missile systems “inexplicably” executed commands. However, the German defense ministry strenuously denied the allegations, according to Die Welt. The original story: http://bit.ly/1H9PlFa And Die Welt’s follow-up: http://bit.ly/1Cnb1lE

RUSSIAN CHIPS: Russia is formulating a new law that it hopes will reduce dependence on imported technology, and it’s currently trying to work out the specifics of promoting local tech as a replacement. According to a report in Vedomosti, the ministry of communications is leaning toward classifying processors as Russian if they are designed in the country — they will not actually need to have been manufactured there. That said, the ministry is holding off on its formal position until the industry ministry has set out its proposals for the shift. http://bit.ly/1fk1Nw3

RECORD “PIRACY” FINE: The proprietor of an illegal downloading forum called Wawa Mania has been fined a record €15.6 million in France. Dimitri Mader had already been sentenced to a year in prison. Wawa Mania does not actually host copyright-infringing content, but merely provides a search facility and lets its 3 million members share links. As Le Figaro reports, it is not entirely clear where this €15.6 million, to be paid out to movie studios and other producers, is supposed to come from. Mader claimed he had only earned €42,000 in revenues for the service, and used that to pay for server costs. http://bit.ly/1Uw5DCl

DATA BREACHES: The U.K. Home Office has issued an annual report in which it admitted suffering 33 data breaches in the 12 months ended March 31, yet it did not report any of them to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The incidents included the loss of “inadequately protected electronic equipment, devices, or paper documents” from both inside and outside secure government premises, plus 14 cases of “unauthorized disclosure” and 11 filed under “other.” According to The Register: “While the ICO recognizes that there is ‘no legal obligation on data controllers to report breaches of security,’ the office does encourage such reporting, and provides guidance on what breaches it considers reportable…The number of incidents has increased by some magnitude from the previous report, when only five breaches were recorded that were not passed on to the ICO.” http://bit.ly/1CkjAxb

ALGORITHM ISSUES: A study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the International Computer Science Institute has suggested sex discrimination problems with Google’s ad-targeting algorithms. The researchers found that men visiting job sites were more likely to be shown Google ads for higher-paying jobs than women were. According to The Verge: “The same study also found that users visiting websites about substance abuse were shown ads for rehab programs, even though Google did not disclose that it was tracking this information via its Ads Settings tool.” Google sent me this statement in response: “Advertisers can choose to target the audience they want to reach, and we have policies that guide the type of interest-based ads that are allowed. We provide transparency to users with ‘Why This Ad’ notices and Ad Settings, as well as the ability to opt out of interest-based ads.” http://bit.ly/1gl3l9v

— WHAT’S COMING

STAR TREK COMMUNICATOR: The Communicator device on Star Trek was a major inspiration for the mobile phone, so it’s quite sweet to see someone put out a faithful reproduction as a smartphone accessory. As The Next Web reports, a firm called The Wand Company used 3D scans of the original prop to create a $150 (€137) copy that, well, acts like any Bluetooth speaker with a microphone. This is the first fully functional licensed copy of the Communicator, though. I also note, as a Doctor Who fan, that the same outfit makes a Sonic Screwdriver that acts as a universal remote. http://tnw.co/1J2uZPn